A visit to Olympic Park

An afternoon out at Olympic Park, after lunch in Westfield Shopping Centre, in the market food hall.   Very multicultural.    And great seating area.  Very enjoyable.

We left Aaron and Kylie to enjoy a few hours of child free shopping, and set off across the road to visit the Olympic Park.  The front of which is now a giant building site.     

The plants and trees in the park are now well developed, and it is such a pleasant environment.    There are boat tours of the surrounding canals, which look very interesting.

A short stop at the playground.  Raphy looking very happy.

Mia and Abi posing on the hills.

We were meant to walk further, and visit the adventure playground, but were side tracked by the 'beach' area, and fun park.

The 'beach' with sand and a giant paddling pool. At least it was free for children to use, but everything else in the fun park was very pricey.

Mia and Abi chose the water balls.  £4 each for a 4 minute turn.

Raphy had the best deal, £3 for 10 minutes on the giant slide.

Still the children thought it was all really good and went back to the shopping centre a very happy trio.

Afternoon tea at the Savoy

Afternoon tea at the Savoy. A flash affair.  And a birthday treat for me. 

 The line up of the ladies, Karen, Daphne, Judy and me.

Our car?   Oh we wish.

Our table.  Elegantly set, of course.

My new scarf.

First course.  Now where does one start.   Delicious sandwiches and scones.  Lemon butter too, a new experience with scones.

Second course.   The pastries.  A colourful display.  But what to choose.  So we chose all the pastries and halved them between us.  I liked the strawberry pastry the best.

Finally, the cake.  We all chose a thin slice of Victoria sponge.   Thin?

And of course it was all washed down with a quantity of tea.   Verbena for me.  Tea leaves in a silver tea service.  Very nice.

The tea room was very swish, and ornate, with a metal gazebo in the centre, and an artificial skylight above.

What a delightful birthday treat.  I felt so spoilt.  Thank you.

A passport nightmare

A passport nightmare.   Not mine, thank goodness.    But it brought home to me, just how easily a passport can be lost, or stolen, or damaged,  when travelling.

An Australian Passport.   Apparently very sought after by those who make it their business to steal passports.

Last Friday evening we received a frantic telephone call from our friend, Moira, who had lost her passport, possibly stolen, in Aberdeen airport.   She was flying from Aberdeen to Heathrow, where she was to meet other tourists, in order to board a cruise liner in Dover the next day.

 But of course, no passport, no cruise.    Luckily we were home, and were able to collect her from Heathrow.   A very distressed friend.   And nothing could be done until we went to Australia House on Monday morning.   But a few wines and plenty of talk helped considerably.

Monday morning, 9 am, we arrived at Australia House, in order to tell them about the lost or stolen passport.   A very sympathetic response, and as long as Moira parted with some money, they could give her a temporary passport.    Of course we had to walk a distance to obtain the correct photograph, then find a cafe to drink a much needed cup of coffee, and complete the correct forms.

And then we returned to Australia House for the official appointment.   But alas we had to wait a further forty minutes for that, due to everyone having to leave the building.   There was a security alert, a suspicious parcel in the post room apparently.  A little excitement to liven up the day.

The meeting point for all staff and visitors.

The passport was collected on Tuesday afternoon.   In the meantime a few telephone calls to the cruise liner's office, and some mixed messages, gave a positive result.  Moira was told that she could meet the cruise ship in Iceland.   Thankfully on Wednesday, the arrangements were finalised, after parting with a considerable amount of money to pay for the airfare, and transport from the airport to the cruise ship.

In between all of this, her family became aware that she was not on the cruise ship, so some frantic phone calls between Australia and here, took place.   There were some very worried family members.

But it all ended well, and we drove Moira to Luton Airport early Thursday morning to catch an early flight to Iceland.   I could not believe the huge crowd at the airport at 4.30 a.m.   Quite bizarre.

A lost or stolen passport can happen to anyone, and even though we are seasoned travellers, it can happen to us.   Moira has travelled widely during the last forty years, and until now has never experienced any difficulties.

On the front of the folder that holds my Australian passport it states that 'Keep this passport safe at all times and use this wallet to help protect your passport.   Lost/Stolen/Damaged passports will cause inconvenience and replacements will require extra fees.'  

I am paronoid about my passport, and continually check that I have it.   However, it takes but a moment for someone to take it out of your handbag, or pocket, or backpack.   And in moments of inattentiveness due to sleep deprivation or jet lag, it is so easy to inadvertently leave a passport in an airport scanner or on a cafe table.

It is at that point that one realises how crucial a passport is, to future travel plans.  Of course, there will also be a rush to find the nearest embassy or consulate, in order to obtain another passport, plus the expense and plenty of that too.

So before I travel again I must read the Australian travel guide, and check that our travel insurance covers the loss of a passport, and related travel changes.

As the officer in Australia House stated to Moira, 'You are not the first person to lose a passport, and you will not be the last'.

Wimpole Hall

Last weekend we visited our friends in Islip, Northamptonshire.   It was great to catch up with Dawn and Richard, and as usual we were very spoilt.

On the Saturday we drove to Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, in order to look around Wimpole Hall, a magnificent National Trust property.

The house and back garden!   And some garden too.   A beautifully landscaped Parterre Garden.

And all set up for a wedding.   What a magnificent venue.   Apparently the cost, £5000, covered the venue only.

There were long views, from the front and the back of the house.    This view looked towards the folly, which was a good twenty minute walk away.   I loved the pointy box hedging.

The folly, or false Gothic Tower, which had recently been renovated.  Saturday was the opening day.   Free Pimms apparently.   But too far to walk.

The bride and bridesmaids arrived,

and walked through the house, and down the path to the waiting groom, and groomsmen, plus guests.  The wedding was quite a distraction for us.  And the other visitors also.

The grand avenue at the front, two and a half miles long, and lined with trees.   Talk about making an entrance.  Reminds me of the chateaux in the Loire Valley.

The estate comprised of 3,000 acres.     The house, built in 1640, was the largest house in Cambridgeshire.   A very grand house, but also very cosy and comfortable.   The last owners, Captain George Bainbridge, and his wife, who was the daughter of Rudyard Kipling, refurbished the house and gardens, and also had the service wing knocked down, as it was in terrible disrepair.

Some of the previous owners of the house were the Chicheley family, and the Earls of Hardwicke.

The beautiful tessellated floor in the front hallway, apparently covered in carpet by Mrs Bainbridge, during her time in the house.

A very cosy sitting room

And another equally cosy sitting room.    The Bainbridges liked their rooms to be comfortable.

The library was full of books, in many languages.   Multilingual?  Or just a collector of books.   Apparently many of the books were annotated in pencil, so they had been studied, at some point.

An amazing gas light.   The dome was built in the roof, and the room underneath was taken away, so that the view from the ground floor was quite spectacular.   Natural light during the day as well.

The size of the bath does not look very large in this photograph,   But it was huge, and very deep, with steps down the side of the bath.   The metal cylinder at the front was the shower.   Not for the fainthearted.

The stables, which were a wreck when the National Trust took over the estate.   It was quite a feat of renovation and restoration, but the finished result was impressive.   Inside the building there were now tea rooms and shops.

We also walked around the walled garden, which was also very impressive and very large.   And such an assortment of flowers, shrubs and grasses.

New Zealand flax bush.

Humpty Dumpty?   Not fallen yet though.

A very long path, lined with box hedging, and full of every vegetable imaginable.   There were also plenty of espaliered fruit trees against the walls, growing well in the warmth.

I loved these flowers, in different colours.   A variation of the common yellow yarrow.   Just like pincushions.

On Sunday we walked around Islip and admired all the beautiful houses, plus the Nene River, which flowed through the centre of the village.  

The photograph below was of the church and its very tall and majestic spire.  The steep spires in Northamptonshire, are a landmark in the area, and they rise high above the rolling hills.   There are about three hundred churches in the county, and one hundred of them have very high spires.

It was a lovely weekend, staying with our friends, and looking around their village, as well as visiting an interesting National Trust proprty.

Home again. Goodbye Scandinavia.

Always great to be home again.     Although a little sad.   No Poppy or Donna or Patrick.   Just empty rooms and a great deal of black dog hair, everywhere, just to remind us of Poppy.   Poppy, together with Donna and Patrick. is now in Australia, and happily going for walks on a beautiful beach.   I wonder if she misses her walks in Joydens Wood,with its narrow paths and plenty of mud and ditches to jump into.

We had an easy drive from Hamburg to Utrecht, in increasingly warmer weather.   Little did we know what was in store for us for the rest of the week.   

The line up of ducks at our Hamburg camping ground.   

Our last camping ground, De Vliert, by Houten, was quiet, luckily, otherwise we would not have been able to stay there.   There were preparations underway for the beginning of the Tour De France, which was in Utrecht the next weekend.  A temporary toilet/shower block, coloured bicycles hanging from posts at the front, and a large screen with a bar, in one of the farm buildings, predicted that the camping ground was going to be full.   We left on the Friday, before the onslaught of caravans and motorhomes.

The weather last week was exceedingly hot, and I believe the temperatures reached the mid thirties.   The flatness of the land just seemed to make the heat worse.   But the evenings were very pleasant, and the sunsets glorious.

A photograph taken from the campsite, looking over the fields, at about 11 p.m.   We opened every window in the caravan and it was actually very pleasant sleeping weather.  Luckily it did get dark.   We certainly could not have done this in Scandinavia.

It was lovely to see Aaron, Kylie, Mia, Abi, Raphy and their cousin, Murphy, again.   And to sit outside on their new patio, and admire the creative landscaping.   Such a beautiful area.   My apologies, no family photographs, due to leaving my camera in the caravan.   Walter took the photograph below, not long before a massive thunderstorm.   We had to pack away our chairs in quite a hurry, and escape to the inside of the hosue.

Last Friday we caught the ferry from Hoek van Holland, a ferry that was packed with people, and vehicles, due to the problems in Calais.   It took ages for them to get all the trucks on board, and we were quite late leaving the port.   Still it was a smooth trip, and the airconditioning was very welcome.

We arrived back at our caravan storage area, and had to unhitch the caravan in near darkness, thankfully it was not raining, there were no puddles and the caravan mover worked very well.  

Our garden was so overgrown, and the lawn a field of meadow grass, ready to be made into hay.   It was a shock to the system to fast forward in time, plant wise.   Scandinavia was about six weeks behind the Netherlands and England, in plant growth.   We left Denmark, where everything was green and lush, and lilac trees still flowering, to find that the grass had turned brown here, and field crops were nearly ready to be harvested.  

The small green patch in the lawn was due to the water running off the soaker hose, which I had laid amongst the rhubarb.   The watering system which I installed before I left worked brilliantly, and came on every morning at 7 a.m. for fifteen minutes.   Consequently the potplants, and the rhubarb, all looked really healthy.  

And so ended a fantastic trip to Scandinavia.    We covered about 4,500 kms by car, travelled on four ferries, plus cruises on Hardangerfjord.   A round trip from Hamburg and back to Hamburg, without taking the same road or route.

The trip took us via a ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, to Houten, Netherlands and from there we travelled north to Hamburg, then to Puttgarden where we took a ferry to Denmark.  

After Copenhagen, we travelled across the Oresund Bridge, and up to Stockholm, which took two and a half days.   We drove across Sweden to Oslo, taking in Karlstad on the way.  

From Oslo we drove across Norway, via Seljord, and a very high pass, to Skare, where we turned north towards Lofthus, on the edge of the Hardangerfjord.    After looking around the area and taking a few cruises, we drove north to Voss, and a day trip to Bergen.

After Voss, we started our return journey, across another mountain pass, and through a deep tunnel under the Oslofjord, before turning south towards Goteborg.   We caught a ferry from Goteborg to Denmark, and then drove to the tip of Denmark, to Skagen.  

Finally we were on the homeward trip, three days driving back to Houten, through the centre of Denmark, and across northern Germany, and into the Netherlands.

Our car was brilliant, so very comfortable, and it pulled the caravan easily, even on the steepest of roads.    Our caravan, our home from home, was very comfortable.   We experienced only minor problems, such as losing one of the Alko hitch pads, breaking off the aerial on a tree branch, and having to jiggle the electrical plug to make a connection.    We drove slowly, and kept to the recommended speed, even though no one else appeared to be doing so.   A very stress free trip.   Except for the five minutes of sheer panic, when I could not reverse the caravan on the narrow stretch of road, by the Handangerfjord.  Just a small problem really.

A very memorable journey.